SOCIALIZE WITH US

Top Ten Innovations in THC

California’s medical-marijuana law has made the San Francisco Bay Area
a global epicenter for weed innovation. Stanford alums at the company
Ploom are refining “the iPod of vaporizers” in the Dogpatch. Cannabis labs like Steep Hill in Oakland
are performing quality assurance on hyper-refined tinctures, which are
distilled, edible extracts of pot suspended in glycerin or ethanol.

As a full-time freelance journalist in San Francisco,
I have a medical-cannabis column in the East Bay Express and a weed-culture blog on SFGate.com called Smell the Truth, among other related gigs. And I’ve been keeping notes on some of the most innovative ways
people are getting stoned or, in many new use cases, not stoned at all.
Let’s explore them.

CAPSULES

By far the biggest revolution in the last decade
of medical pot has been cannabidiol (CBD). The second-most common active
ingredient in weed, CBD counteracts the euphoria of pot’s main active ingredient, THC. CBD is also highly therapeutic – it’s an anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic, anti-seizure drug
that also prevents brain damage during a stroke. Kind Caps’ CBD formula contains 14 milligrams of CBD and 6.3 milligrams
of THC per capsule – perfect for getting the effects of CBD without the disorientation
of high-THC products. One cap is like taking one valium (if valium were
available in the form of a big green gelatin capsule). Side effects
include a Zen-like acceptance of life and herbaceous burps. Take it
with food.

TOPICALS

I’ll be damned. This green-tinted, vanilla-/herb-scented weed
cream actually zapped my neck pain from typing on an iPad all day at
the San Francisco High Times Medical Cannabis Cup this June. And it
worked again yesterday on my right knee, which was swollen from being
dislocated after an old skateboarding accident. Placebo? Possibly. The
therapeutic effects of a quick massage? Perhaps. But doctors say the
active ingredients in weed can indeed penetrate the skin to affect muscle
nerves without getting you high. Count me among the thousands of believers.

MICRO-VAPORIZERS

A super-clandestine e-cigarette for weed, “vape pens” are a symbol of the totally unregulated, hyper-libertarian
dystopia that is California medical marijuana. They’re also arguably the future of the drug. These $70 devices
use a rechargeable battery, atomizer, and a refillable cannabis-oil
reservoir to create an innocuous, near-odorless vapor. They’re so ultra-low profile that people use them on airplanes.
The iDragon vape pen tip doubles as an iPhone stylus.

TINCTURES

Until the 1930s, tinctures manufactured by US
drug companies were the default form of medical marijuana. In 2013,
these edible liquid distillations of cannabis are back and hyper-evolving.
Two droppers’ full of Alta’s Tranquility Tincture taken orally cause feelings of well-being,
relieve anxiety, and bring on sleep. Sweet, yet alcoholic, the ethanol-based
infusion is perfect for people who can’t or don’t want to smoke – such as hospice patients and Alzheimer’s sufferers. Each batch comes from Safe Cannabis–certified plants and is lab tested to ensure a 50-50 THC-CBD
ratio.

LOZENGES

The new Oakland company Candose has a vegan, gluten-free
line of medicated edibles as professional looking as commercial candy.
Candose lozenges come in banana, butterscotch, cherry, key-lime, orange,
strawberry, raspberry, and watermelon flavors, and they adhere to standardized
dosages of low (6.25 milligrams of THC), medium (12.5 milligrams of
THC), and high (25 milligrams of THC). Their Blue Raspberry Flower Sour
is chewier and tastier than a Sour Patch Kid, and the 25-milligram dose
felt like it wrapped my brain in thick gauze, perfect for dealing with
Muni or an IMAX 3D showing of Pacific Rim.

TAFFY

Medical marijuana, meet Tootsie Rolls. Cheeba Chews’ makers use locally sourced cannabis that is infused into
gluten and nut-free chocolate taffy, and lab-test their product at each
stage to ensure fantastic dosage consistency. These chews are probably
the most potent, discreet edible on the market. They come in several
flavors, from three different varieties of the plant—sativa, indica, and hybrid—which are associated with energy, sleep, and relaxation,
respectively. Each chew is professionally wrapped and labeled and contains
100 milligrams of THC, which is like smoking 1.5 joints of strong weed.
It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours for an edible to
hit you, so eat one-quarter of a chew and wait.

TRAIL MIX

Let’s face it – the taste of weed sucks. It’s like a combination of hay, yerba mate, and some fraction
of licorice or Jägermeister. But it turns out that cannabis flavor
is pretty analogous to the herb rosemary, and it pairs astonishingly
well with salty, oily proteins such as those in nuts. Wish Edibles demonstrates
this fact with Kush Nuts, an immaculately designed foil pouch of cashews,
almonds, peanuts, olive oil, rosemary, garlic, salt, and cannabis butter
that contains 2.2 grams of cannabis and 100 milligrams of keif per bag.
Eating an entire bag would sabotage a day hike in the mountains, but
a handful of nuts at the halfway milestone would make for a delicious,
preemptive strike on sore feet, muscle aches, and pains.

PIZZA

OrganiCann in Santa Rosa and Oakland (where they
are called Oakland Organics) offers another rare, savory type of medicated
edible – premade frozen cheese and pepperoni pizzas. Dispensary
bakers start with fresh pizza dough and add medicated pizza sauce as
well as a medicated garlic spread of parmesan cheese, parsley, cannabis-infused
butter, garlic, salt, and pepper, followed by mozzarella cheese and
optional pepperoni. It cooks up as well as a store-bought DiGiorno and
serves six people a significant but not overwhelming body high.

ICE CREAM

Sometimes you’ve just got to go full stoner. Aim high with these Santa
Cruz–based gourmet ice cream edibles from Créme De Canna. Available
in Straw-Mari Cheesecake, Bananabis Foster, Triple Fudge Brownie, Créme
De Canna ice cream is good enough to be an acquisition target for Ben
& Jerry’s. The Straw-Mari includes some surprise notes of Grand
Marnier liqueur. The Bananabis Foster is cinnamon, rum, and banana liqueur
run amok. All ingredients are medicated, including the chocolate bits
in the Triple Fudge Brownie. Splitting one half pint will put two people
to sleep.

GOURMET CHOCOLATE

The age of mystery-weed chocolate is coming to
an end, thank God. The human liver turns pot’s main active ingredient (Delta-9-THC) into a stronger,
longer-lasting version of itself (Delta-11-THC), so one mystery edible
can equal an uncomfortable, 12-hour trip. Kiva’s mega-potent, lab-tested gourmet Tangerine Dark Chocolate
bars contain precisely 180 milligrams of THC per bar. Half a bar is
enough to thoroughly zonk out a person for the duration of, say, a red-eye
flight to Cozumel, Mexico (via Atlanta, Cancun, taxi, and ferry ride). Crazy-delicious and chocaholic approved.

SOAP

Little known fact – the active ingredients in cannabis can treat some autoimmune
disorders. That’s why smoking pot can stop Crohn’s disease in its tracks,
and that’s why Sensi Suds seems to work on intractable skin disorders
such as psoriasis, eczema, and chronic dry skin. Vallejo’s Highway 101 collective offers this cannabinoid-infused
hippie soap, which can’t get you high. A combination of a bunch of medicinal herbs,
including pot, and coconut oil, Sensi Suds all but cured a close friend’s intractable eczema in one week. My other buddy swears
it staved off the pain and peeling from a Fourth of July sunburn. Worst-case
scenario, you smell like a clean hippie.